The present day musical, stringed instrument, such as a guitar, includes a hollow body having a neck extending therefrom, with laterally spaced tensioned strings being supported in longitudinally extending positions thereon and in pressure contact with a tail piece. Guitars have fretted necks to serve as a fingerboard. Vibrations of the strings are transmitted from the tail piece to the top of the body. The top is coupled to the bottom of the body by a post. The top has an opening therein. The top and bottom, the opening, and the hollow interior of the body form a multi-resonant system for coupling the vibrating strings to the air to produce musical tones.
In an electric guitar, the vibrations of the strings are transmitted to a bridge, which bridge, in turn, transmits the vibrations to a mechano-electric transducer. The transducer converts the mechanical vibrations into corresponding electrical vibrations. These vibrations are amplified by suitable electrical means to energize a loudspeaker to produce musical tones.
In both the conventional guitar and the electrical version thereof, the strings are plucked by the fingers or with a pick to cause the strings to vibrate. However, the vibrations of the plucked strings quickly dampen out and the musical tones produced thereby is of short duration.
The present invention overcomes the above-described disadvantages by providing a manually actuated, power operated device that permits at least one moving member to be brought selectively into light pressure contact with a string of the musical stringed instrument to cause the former to vibrate. The string will vibrate so long as such pressure contact is effected, and, as a result, novel and unusual musical effects may be achieved from the stringed instrument, such as a conventional or electric guitar, that are not attainable when the strings are merely plucked.